Disclaimer:
All DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama.
The other ones belong to me :p

YELL
" Someone has taken the idea of revenge a little bit too far "

Chapitre TEN : Fourth Call


SON HOUSE, 10:27 p.m.

Goten turned and looked towards the living room from the kitchen where he was standing. His niece was drowsing, her head on her mother's knees while Videl was whispering with Chichi. To remain together. A question of survival. It was out of question to let someone isolated from the rest of the group, even if it was for going to the restroom. Goten got a slight smile at the idea of someone getting a noisy diarrhea and obliging all the others to endure the "concert".

Since the phone-call that Pan had received in the morning, and the fact that the author of that call was still running free, nobody was feeling safe.

"Apparently, it's not only against Trunks, but against anybody else in the team", Chichi had told firmly to Videl before ordering her to take refuge at her place with her daughter.

Goten admired his mother. Despite the death of one of her sons, she was keeping a control almost perfect on herself - past the first hours of crisis. He sighed. It was true everybody in the team had been used for a long time to count on the dragon balls to resurrect people...

Chichi was watching Pan, now asleep on her mother's knees. Kids' sleep was so unfathomable. All the terrors of the day were smoothing down into monsters you could subdue, and amusing adventures. Never before now, had she wished so much to sleep with such a self-abandon.

"Do you think Trunks is able to ensure Bulma's protection by himself?", Videl asked in a whisper in order not to wake up Pan. Chichi blinked and brought her attention back to her daughter-in-low. Videl had her features drawn, but trusted the dragon balls to resurrect the father of her child. "He's half-saiya-jin", she replied. He has the strength to deal with powerful enemies, was her internal thought. Videl guessed her thought and went on: "Gohan too was a half-saiya-jin... And a mystic warrior. And yet..." She couldn't go on for awhile.

"The only thing that worries me...", Chichi whispered, "... is that, according to Goku, Trunks didn't seem to be fine this afternoon. That's why Goku is away. He told me he was going to restart the researches to find Vegeta. Goten is the only one to insure the security of this place. I hope for Bulma that Trunks will be able to insure hers..."

"If it goes on like that", Videl whispered, "perhaps it will be good to consider the gathering of the whole team in only one place". She paused, then "Do you think Vegeta is dead, too?". Chichi looked in a distance for several seconds before answering: "Vegeta loves showing himself as an arrogant bastard in public, but one needs to be completely blind not to realize that he loves his family."

She looked in the direction of the window before going on, "Thus, if he's still not there while his family is in danger, that means that something really serious keeps him away..."

Before she could make her thought more precise, Goten's cell-phone, placed in the charger near the kitchen door, started ringing. Pan shuddered in her sleep but didn't wake up. Goten casted an interrogative look towards the device, then walked to it, casting a fast look at the wall clock indicating 10:30 p.m.

He picked up the received at the third ring.

"Hello?"

Chichi, who was about to ask him if it was about Vegeta, suspended her question in front of the order to keep silence intimated by Goten's hand gesture.

"Who?", he asked, his eyebrow slightly frowned.

During the seconds that followed, Chichi saw her surviving son's face expression passing from the interrogation to a pale stupefaction mask that quickly moved to cold anger as his breathing was accelerating.

"WHAT?!", was the only word he whistled through his teeth with rage. Rage was now altering his face features.

"Goten...", Chichi called with a high-pitched voice she didn't recognize at first instance. She was probably close to a new hysteria crisis, she thought. Goten didn't seem to listen to her, but rather to his interlocutor. Chichi and Videl were feeling heavy hearts in front of Goten's silence and thunders of hatred they could read in his eyes. Was this call announcing that a new victim had fallen? And if it was the case, who...? Chichi had to admit the egoistic thought that it was not her husband...

"IF YOU EVER TOUCH ONE OF HIS HAIR... ", Goten screamed at the phone, letting the threat unfinished. Pan woke up at once. For Chichi and Videl, the message was clear. Goten was talking with the killer. Acting impulsively, Videl leaped towards Goten. "No wai--", was all Goten could say to his interlocutor before Videl grabbed the phone from his hands. "HELLO!!!", she screamed in the receiver.

But all she could hear was the "clic" of the end of communication. Goten, apparently ignoring this fact, grabbed the receiver from her hands and started yelling at his turn: "SONOFAB--". He interrupted himself when he realized that the communication had been broken.

"What's happening, Goten?", Chichi asked in a voice where all self-control had disappeared. Goten breathed rapidly, looking first the cell-phone he was holding convulsively, then his mother.

"It was him....", he said with an almost inaudible voice. "... and he's going to kill Trunks..."

"What?!". Pan's over-shrilled voice was heard. Goten turned to the door, while putting his Cell-phone in the pocket on his coat. "I must go!!! Videl, Protect my mother!!!".

Before any of the women could react, Goten was outside and flying like a bullet towards the Capsule Corporation. The fact that his mother on the point of hysteria, screamed his name, didn't slow him down.

*******************************

CAPSULE CORPORATION 10:50 p.m.

Trunks only knew he had fallen asleep when the electronic rings of his cell-phone took him out of his dream, leaving only the memory of some kind of dark-gray streaks with vague pictures of pipes, dark water, and a lot of watches on both his forearm...

As he was gaining consciousness, he felt a movement on his side that made him open his eyes quickly. At the same time, he realized that the cell-phone ring was not from his cell-phone. Turning his head, he saw Katrina, rolling on herself to take *her* cell-phone in her bag at the bottom of the bed. Trunks gazed again towards the ceiling. He was feeling completely hazy, but judged that his state could be a consequence of the shock-training he had with Goku during the afternoon in the gravity room.

He heard at Katrina's "hello" that she was in the same state than him... probably for other reasons... He couldn't prevent a slight victorious smile to appear on his lips.

Katrina remained silent for a few seconds, her eyes closed as if still under the influence of the sleep, then turned to Trunks with the same drowsy voice : "It's for you".

Trunks took the cell-phone, half-surprised. Who could try to reach him on Katrina's cellular? But in his state, he wasn't any longer asking himself questions. He put the cellular near his ear. "Yeah?"

//Ow ow ow, Trunks...//

The low, and now horribly familiar voice...

"FUCK!!!", the half-saiya-jin yelled, making Katrina startle before she turned towards him, her eyes wide while the comprehension seemed to reach her.

//Don't scream like that//, the low and soft voice went on, //I didn't came for you. At least this time//, he added with a playful tone. //I find your girlfriend pretty as a picture... Especially in this... uh... very light clothing...//

And the characteristic clic of end of communication was heard before Trunks could retort anything.

He turned quickly towards Katrina, "Get dressed! FAST!!", and he jumped towards the window to close furiously the curtains and mask the view to an eventual external observer.

"What's happening?", Katrina whispered with a voice that sounded more like the sqeek of a mouse while finishing to put her clothes on, as if she could guess the answer by herself. Trunks grabbed her arm - perhaps too brutally - and dragger her to the door.

"I'm going to put you in a safe place in one of the laboratories", he whispered, so that she would be the only one to hear him.

"Why?", she croaked, "what's happen- -?"

"The killer is here!!", Trunks retorted. My God, she's so slow... "And he is after you, as it seems. ".

Katrina said nothing, but the sudden blankness of her face spoke for her. Trunks summed up the situation: "I'm going to put you in safe place in one of the labs, and then I settle old scores with this sonofabitch!". He interrupted himself, judging the irony of the insult, if the killer was who he was thinking.

"In brief, I'm the lure, right? "

Katrina's voice was bitter. Trunks half-turned to her in the half-light. "It's the only way I can get him. I ignore where he is. But trust me, he won't get you".

"Speak of a choice...". Her voice was even more bitter now, but she became silent, clenching convulsively Trunks' hand.

Trunks put his hand on the handle of his room-door, trying to mentally scan the corridor on the other side of the door, searching for a ki that wouldn't be his parents' or his sister's. By luck, Bulma had taken Bra to her parent's building for the night. The security system was better in that building than this one. Nothing. There were no one in the corridor...

But he wasn't reassured much. His mind was quickly turning in order to determine the laboratory room that would offer the best protection to his girlfriend, while allowing him to prepare the better snare to the killer.

A thought flashed through his mind: the security system of his grandparents' building was probably safer than this one, this building was equipped with a state-of-the-art system. There were few chances that the killer could enter inside this building without provoking the alarm.

Genetic Identification, he suddenly remembered, feeling like an acid bubble bursting in his stomach. If I can enter the building, so can Mirai-Trunks. We are like twins.

He clenched his teeth while scanning again the corridor. He couldn't detect anything. But that meant nothing... In the future, Mirai-Trunks had learned how to dissimulate his ki to escape the cyborgs. It had become like a second nature for him.

Trunks passed rapidly in his mind the way to take Katrina to the laboratory. He was thinking of the one where the particles-accelerators tests were done. It was - as far as he knew - the most resistant laboratory; but not the closest... He wondered how would be a direct fight against Mirai-Trunks. They had never fought a real fight in the past; who knows? Perhaps he would be a match for him.

Boosted by the latest thought, Trunks grabbed Katrina's arm and opened the door slowly, spying the least movement outside, pricking up his ear to detect any breathing that wouldn't be his or Katrina's.

Instead of reassuring him, the reining silence outside only increased his nervousness.

He's putting me in a stress-situation, he thought. He probably wants to recreate the kind of psychological pressure of the hunter and the prey, like what he lived in the future...

He squeezed Katrina's arm perhaps a little bit too tight for the latter, under the effect of the rage.

I'm going to show him, that the prey can use claws and fangs too.

He took a last breathing, then rushed in the corridor, half-dragging Katrina behind him. He had the feeling that a vise was shutting on him since he had left the semi-security of his room. He expected at every moment to see the killer appearing suddenly in front of them, or behind them. Peek-a-booh! The echo of their footsteps in the corridor seemed to create the illusion of a third person running along with them. Trunks was feeling on the edge of total panic. He could feel cold sweat sticking his tee-shirt to the skin of his back. They were still running with the passing corridors lightened only by the light filtering from the outside by some windows with as result that the place seemed to bath into some bluish and diffused light. Trunks knew well enough the layout of the building to be able to move rapidly in the darkness. Always running, they were passing in front of doors of lower security laboratories. Nothing good for Katrina's protection. Trunks saw at the end of the corridor the firebreak door leading to lower levels where laboratories more important - and thus more secured - were placed. Five meters from the door, he slew down, his instinct warning him of an imminent danger. The next moment, as if to prove him right, the door opened slowly.

And remained opened.

Trunks stopped right his progression, crouching, his eyes widened and his simmering nostrils, completely caught in this life-and-death game. He could hear behind him Katrina's gasps for air, her fear probably preventing her to gather her breathing silently.

The door was remaining open, and nothing was happening. Trunks couldn't hear any noise coming from the other side of the door. But the silence was even more frightening. Without realizing it, he had bared his teeth in a wild beast grin. He didn't seem to realize that he was completely off-guard in the middle of the corridor, and that if his opponent was going to shoot with a laser as he had used against Gohan, he wouldn't be able to protect himself.

The silence lengthened a few more seconds. Trunks didn't dare to move, fearing that the slightest movement could break this fragile equilibrium and trigger off a gigantic storm of violence. He scanned again mentally the darkness of the other side of the door. He couldn't detect any ki, but his sixth sense was warning him of a presence.

Suddenly, the tension was too strong for him and he let go Katrina's hand to fire impulsively a burning blast towards the open door. Katrina just had the time to throw herself to the floor, her hands on her head, in order to avoid the explosion that followed. The explosion started just behind the door with a deafening noise. Under the effect of the sudden air dilatation, the door itself was blown off its hinges and flew towards Trunks, pushed by the hot air, the flames and the smoke. It rebounded two meters before Trunks and Katrina and went smashing against the wall.

Did I got him? Was all what Trunks could think at that moment. They had been no scream from the eventual enemy. Already, the anti-fire system had started, spraying the corridor with a frozen shower.

Trunks was at the point of wondering if the killer had really been there, or if his perception of the danger had just been an illusion that his nerves had created, when a movement in the flames caught his attention. If, at the beginning, he thought of some plays provoked by the wind in the middle of the fire, he quickly changed his opinion when he saw a big size shadow moving among the flames.

Behind him, Katrina was raising on her feet; "Trunks...! LOOK!!!". Trunks didn't need her advice to gaze the enemy who was standing in front of them.

*******************************

Bulma startled and realized she had fallen asleep in the seat. She was surprised at the beginning, casting a look around the room where she was. She had fallen asleep in the living room of her parents' building. She remembered to put Bra in the friend-room, to have tucked her in her bed before checking the security system, and to have come back in the living room. She had taken a National Enquirer magazine to keep her mind busy, thinking she would never be able to reach the sleep.

Her nerves had perhaps exhausted her without her awareness - unless it was the magazine that was perhaps more boring that what she had thought - she had dived right in a deep sleep without any dream. She was caught by a horrible stiffness, especially at the level of the nape of her neck. She started thinking that she had probably slept almost two hours, and in an uncomfortable position in the gray leather seat that her father loved so much. She managed to raise - not without difficulty - from what she had always imagined - in her tender childhood - as a gigantic dull-colored carnivorous flower because of the way you could sink into that seat, with all difficulties to drag yourself out of it. She walked with a prudent pace towards the light-switch, managing not to bang herself into the hexagonal marble coffee table (when she was a kid, she suspected it to be half-alive, and to move during the night to better hit her in her tibias when, caught by a nocturne raging appetite, she was moving discretely until the kitchen fridge).

It's only when she reached the switcher and when the living-room was engulfed into the light, that she became aware of what had dragged her out of sleep; the unpleasant and repeating sizzling, so similar to an electronic alarm-clock, and yet, so different with the underlying threat it seemed to whisper to her subconscious.

Bulma turned on herself and walked with a fast pace towards the wall near the kitchen door. She already knew what she was going to find when she opened the white plastic plate dissimulating the security panel. There were about twenty similar panels, disseminated in the various buildings of the Capsule Corporation (one in all Bulma's rooms also). They allowed people to check from various places the security status.

When she opened the plastic door, she noticed instantly what she was fearing: only one pilot light was blinking; and it was referring to a fire alarm in her own building, the one where Trunks and Katrina were actually.

I just hope, she started, that it's not Trunks who lost control and provoked all this by himself...

*******************************

At the light of the flames, reflecting in the multitude of water droplets from the anti-fire system, Trunks observed his opponent in details. With a size similar to his, wearing an ample black toga - probably anti-fire, as he didn't seem at all affected by the presence of the flames in which he was standing - his face, half-hidden by the cowl of the toga, was pallid and shiny, reflecting the flames as if it was just a mask; strange dark and sinuous furrows seemed to have been dug under his thin and empty sockets.

There, standing silent in the middle of the flames, he looked totally like the Death Angel. Trunks couldn't detect any ki coming from him.

No ki, but he survived my attack...

"Finally you reveal yourself to the light. Not too early!", Trunks said with an anger tone where an impressed tune had filtered. Damn it! He made an irritated movement of his head to move away from his eyes a lock of his hair wet with the cold water falling from the ceiling. He could feel on his arm Katrina's clenched fingers, remembering thus her presence.

Too late to put her in safe in one of the underground labs. He would have to settle with what he would find at this level, for the other would never let him pass calmly with his prey.

The silence and immobility of the other ended by destroying Trunks' remains of patience and nerves, and, ready to make him pay the past days psychosis, he reacted impulsively one more time: Placing himself before Katrina, he fired a blast to his opponent.

The killer was fast to react. A hand as pale as his "face" gushed out the black toga and pushed the ki-ball aside, provoking a new flame-and-smoke explosion. Katrina took shelter behind Trunks and closed her eyes, but Trunks saw the killer leaping towards them through the curtain of flames, taking advantage of the sudden confusion. Trunks just had the time to leap on the left, pushing violently Katrina on the right.

The killer's hand, ended by kind of blood-red claws, cut the air between both of them. Caught by his momentum, the killer ended two meters behind them. Trunks didn't loose his time: he leaped with all his weight against his opponent, projecting him further, while yelling to Katrina: "Shelter yourself in one of the labs, and lock the door!!!"

Katrina remained petrified, not moving of an inch, gazing the killer with a look that was varying between terror and curiosity.

"HURRY!!! AND BARRICADE YOURSELF!!!", Trunks screamed.

This seemed suddenly to wake up Katrina; she startled, then raised on her feet and grabbed with a trembling hand the door against which she had collapsed. The door opened without any trouble, and Katrina swept into the laboratory, slamming the door behind her.

"Now it's between you and me!", Trunks said with rage to his opponent. He felt energized by this mixing of cold rain and flames' heat. The enemy... The one who had haunted his days and his dreams, was finally in front of him. Not anymore an elusive ghost, but a being provided with a body, able to feel pain if hit... And to bleed if well-hit...

//It's not your turn yet...//, the killer answered with his calm and familiar voice - as his lips didn't move, Trunks got the confirmation that this pallid face was nothing more than a mere mask. //Are you that eager to die?//, he went on with a falsely astonished tone.

Trunks took a fighting stance, ready to jump on his opponent, ready to make everything to reverse the roles of the hunter and the prey. "I'm not the one who will die". He had put in his voice all the Saiya-jin arrogance made-in Vegeta.

//Aah?//, the masked killer went on, //you're so fool... The very kind of a hero... You want to protect your girlfriend? But make no mistake... Will we keep on fighting here and she too will die, soon or late//.

Trunks measured the truth in those words. Two attacks from him had already seriously damaged a part of the corridor. He would have to stop using ki-attacks but only his kung-fu knowledge.

He knew I was going to act that way, he thought, he used a laser against Gohan; he perhaps can't use ki-attacks. And he's using Katrina as a hostage to be sure I won't use them as well...

//Try to see if your speed can match mine//, the killer said with a playful tone before performing a fast retreat movement and disappearing in the shadows of the corridor from where Trunks and Katrina had come a few minutes before.

"COME BACK HERE!!!" Trunks yelled before running after him. If he was to loose him now, the worst was to fear.

*******************************

Bulma had rapidly put a warmer coat on her shoulders and had taken a uzi with her when she saw the second fire pilot light blinking on the security panel. It corresponded to a location very close to the first one. Perhaps the first fire had provoked the second, but her instinct was screaming at her that there was nothing natural in all that.

She put her hand into the pocket of her coat, while holding the uzi with her other hand, and met at the bottom of the pocket a little piece of paper, rigid and rectangular. She took it out and recognized the visit card that Lee, Hayden's assistant, had given her in case of problem. She measured rapidly the situation, and her potential compared to the potential of a killer carrying weapons able to finish a mystic warrior like Gohan. She'd probably need backups, and especially, if Hayden could see that Trunks was not the killer, it would help her son to get out of his actual nervous breakdown.

*******************************

Trunks was raging. The killer seemed to know perfectly the Capsule Corporation complex. As well as him at last. He was inching his way along the shadows with a staggering speed, and Trunks, used to locate his enemies with their ki, had trouble to follow this one.

I must grab that toga, Trunks thought, I must see who's hiding behind that disguise!

But the killer was slipping away at each attack from Trunks, seeming to draw him further and further in the meanders of the complex, without displaying once the least hesitation on the way to take. Taken by the rage, Trunks was following blindly, determined to deliver a fatal blow to his opponent. And the fact that the killer dodged each of his attack was enraging him even more; he had to feeling to fight against a puff of air.

At a certain time, the killer swept into one of the corridors dived into almost total darkness. Trunks rushed into it at his turn and was caught by the darkness. He reached automatically the light-switcher but no light appeared. At the end of the corridor, a window diffusing the moonlight allowed him to distinguish a furtive movement of his opponent. He leaped towards that unique source of light, but he hadn't made three steps that his instinct start yelling; the next moment, he felt a violent blow on the nape of his neck and fell on the floor, wide eyes. He was seeing blinking lights before his eyes and pressed his hands on the nape of his neck, his eye convulsively closed, the mouth opened in a silent cry, rolling on himself, torn by the pain. A foot-kick rolled him on his back; he opened his eyes and saw the dim light of the end of the corridor reflecting on the pallid mask of his opponent. He remained petrified, considering the proximity of his enemy.

How could he move to fast?

[to be continued... ]

*****************************


Sadic? Meeee? ;P
Only because I end the chapter at a crucial moment? ;)
Baaaaah, you're sooo bad with me ;PPPP

Diane, Rose Angel, Judith and ssTrunks, THANX FOR YOUR REVIEWS ^__________^ They were really interesting and I spent happy moments reading them :-))))

I'm happy you all seemed to love the dream sequence ^_________^
(I had a friend who puked ^^; )

About that dream thing... hmm, there's still a lot to discover about it. It wasn't as simple as Trunks first thought :p

I'll try to answer about some of your comments without being a spoiler ;p

Vegeta's disappearance: as mentionned before by Bulma, it's not the first time that Vegeta disappears without saying where he goes, that's why people in the dragon team didn't worry at the beginning. But now you saw that chichi and Videl are also finding it strange, the fact he's not back after what happened...

They were so used to Vegeta coming and going that it took them some times to realize that perhaps there was something wrong with him...

Judith:
"We have to pay attention in the dialogue. It remains me the scene between Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin in "... aah? OO; I still have to see the movie ;P I'll be able to compare, then... :)

Rose Angel:
Guy/Girl: *walks up, handing him a glass of formula* Hi, drink this.
Vegeta: ...
-- LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
--- of course if you say that if someone drugged Vegeta, it was someone closed to him, then you have to think the same way for Gohan... ;-)

Diane:
"Can Saiyan family members bond? " Uh... if by "bond" you mean if they can have like a mind-link between then, I think YES. Remember when Mirai-Trunks fought Bojack (in one of the movies) and was nearly killed, Vegeta sensed it (while he was sleeping at the Caps. Corp.) and went directly to save him.

ssTrunks:
Interesting idea, the babidi thing... Honestly I hadn't thought about it :D (oops! spoiler ^^;;;;;;; )

I'm working on a prequel of YELL: "Nothing Hurts Like Your Mouth". It's in proof-reading phase for the moment, but should appear tomorrow or saturday :-)
Some points of the story will explain a few things about YELL (especially a point that will be mentionned in YELL14). I realise some of you don't seem to like Lynn. What happened between Lynn, Mirai-Trunks an present-Trunks will be deeper explored in that fic, and you'll discover how Katrina met Goten and Trunks (many of you don't seem to like Katrina neither :ppp )

Gotta go now... 03h35 am... I need some sleep :p

See ya :D